Diagnosis: Reyes has right-calf tendinitis

Jose Reyes was back in New York today, getting an MRI, which revealed that the Mets shortstop has tendinitis behind his right calf and is officially listed as day to day. He will avoid the disabled list for now, but I don’t see Reyes playing at all this weekend when the Mets face Boston.

Three days or 15 days, the bottom line is Reyes won’t be available, and it leaves one more hole in an already depleted lineup. He is the catalyst for the team and statistics show that when he doesn’t score a run, the Mets don’t win. This was evident in the past four games that the Mets have lost.

This doesn’t bode well for the Mets and their fans. He’s not being placed on the disabled list, so the team will have the same situation when Carlos Delgado was injured but not yet placed on the DL. They will be playing shorthanded.

So, who will Jerry Manuel tap to replace him on the field? Ramon Martinez will probably get the nod, maybe with some Fernando Tatis thrown in for good measure. However, both of them are in a hitting slump and not excellent options at this point.

Part of me thinks the Mets should just place Reyes on the 15-day disabled list and get it over with, instead of playing wait-and-see. We all know how that turned out for Delgado. Let Reyes get his calf fully recovered before getting back on the field. It’s better than losing him for 30 or 60 days.

With any luck, it’s a small injury and after a few days of rest, it’ll be OK again. What do you all think should be done with him?

You know, as much as I hate to admit it as a die-hard, gritty blue-collar Mets fan from some industrial park in Queens, but Steve Phillips was right about Beltran. If he were running things today, our line-up would look a lot better.